Adults who knew him called him Ed, of course. Everyone else called him Weatherman Bowman. He was an original, a radio and television celebrity from the early years of Denver broadcasting. His KOA radio and KOA-TV weather reports were enjoyed in Colorado, southeast Wyoming, western Kansas and Nebraska. Some fans wrote letters from as far away as California, Canada and the Mexican border.

Weatherman Bowman’s talents were many, but his hand-illustrated weather maps on television were enthralling to his viewers. In an age of primitive visual graphics on television, his hand-drawn clouds, suns, wind arrows made a lively, cartoonish presentation. He gathered his data from the Weather Bureau, local farmers, contacts on the Western Slope and his own scientific knowledge of meteorology.

[media-credit name=”KOA-TV File Photo” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Ed (Weatherman) Bowman of KOA radio and television gestures at one of his weather maps, which have suddenly achieved a measure of fame as “art.” November 12, 1967

“Troughs aloft!” Weatherman Bowman was heard to say, with spirit. His personality was part of his delivery and, for it, he was beloved by his audience. Weatherman Bowman was a steady, reliable guest in Colorado living rooms. Viewers who moved away and returned were delighted to find Ed Bowman still broadcasting and often wrote letters to the editor of The Post to say so.

He started at KOA-Radio in 1952, broadcasting his distinctive weather forecasts and building an audience. He had tipsters around the area who phoned in reports of snow amounts and temperatures. His radio broadcasts were made from his basement studio at home, which was linked to KOA studios.

Ed Bowman’s curious mind took him places. Flying airplanes was perhaps a natural fit with his interest and knowledge of ‘troughs aloft.’ He was a B-17 bombardier during World War II. He was a also a journalist and scientist.

His mechanical expertise kept his personal aircraft, a 1937 Ryan STA, going. He kept another, grounded airplane just for parts. And he needed parts after crash-landing the Ryan in a farmer’s field near Castle Rock in 1961. He walked away from that incident with minor injuries and the farmer’s wife drove him to Swedish Hospital.

[media-credit name=”Denver Post File Photo” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Ed (Weatherman) Bowman, who often is forecasting and reporting vicious winds for Wyoming on his KOA weathercasts, this week received a strange contraption from Bill Osborn of KFBC in Cheyenne. Osborn sent a “Wyoming wind sock.” The Wyoming forecasters, according to Osborn, can tell if a wind is “mild” or “strong” by the number of heavy chain links that stand out parallel to the ground in any “breeze.” March 24, 1955